


Swallow the moon, swallow my heart

by eldritcher



Series: The Journal of Maglor [12]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:14:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Daeron worships music, and Maglor masters her. Yet every man has a master, and Daeron comes to realize that music is a kinder deity than the one Maglor worships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swallow the moon, swallow my heart

Mereth Aderthad.

 

“So you are the famed minstrel of Doriath?” the High-King of the Noldor asked. “We have heard much of your compositions.”

I bowed, letting my pride show on my face. Music flowed in my veins and why need I deny it with false modesty?

“Would you sing for us, Daeron?” Fingolfin enquired. 

That was why Thingol had made me a part of the diplomatic convoy. I would sing and leave no doubts in their minds that the Sindar were, and always would be, more cultured and civilised than the Noldor. 

I sang a lay that I had sung umpteen times before in Thingol’s court where the brightest and the fairest men and women of the Sindar had succumbed to the power of my voice. So wrapped in the lay was I that I fled from the feast and the King’s hall into the bucolic pastureland where the shepherd was wooing the virgin maid. I sang of their first tryst, of their love, of the passions shared, of the secrets made, and of the promises sworn. As I seamlessly ventured into the next canto, cut into my song a prouder voice that ripped and burned and coated my lay with gold. The lovers in their green glade were torn apart by fire and darkness and betrayal. My breath caught in my lungs and my song drained into nothing as I wept for the innocence lost. Gold washed my tears away, gold built high towers of hope and gold threw down a lifeline that my battered soul clung to. 

I opened my eyes and found myself on my knees with tears running down my cheeks. Across the floor stood a man who seemed a fragile compilation of mere skin and bones. 

“My nephew, Macalaurë Fëanorion,” said the King with a wary smile on his lips as he, and his whole court, looked down at the pitiable sight I made. Had none of them been so affected by the golden voice? There were tears on a few cheeks, but not a single man or woman had been brought to my state. I cursed my sensitivity to music and consciously let my palms unfurl from the tight fists they made. 

“Are you quite all right, my good minstrel?” asked a solicitous voice, and it was followed by the offer of a robe-encased left hand. So the Noldor had not thought bringing me to my knees sufficient humiliation. They would offer the unclean left hand to make a mockery of assistance and see me further shamed. 

I gripped the hand and pulled myself up. My entire being ached with all the hurt and fury that were pounding me from within. My heart screamed itself raw for the golden voice had bored out its insides and left a gaping, weeping hole in its wake. 

“You seem shaken,” continued the voice that had addressed me. “Perhaps-”

I looked up into limpid grey eyes and then slapped the cruel bastard who would mock a wounded man; for my music had been wounded by the molten gold, and my music was my soul. 

Uproar rose in the court at my gesture and before I could blink, I was being restrained by hands none too gentle. 

“Cowards!” I spat. “Every last one of you!”

“Is he mad?” asked angrily one of the Princes. Finrod, they called him, the fair Finrod. 

“Cease!” barked the man I had just slapped. “It is the music. He seems to be very sensitive to the music, cousins. Let him be. Give him space. He will come to.”

“Macalaurë!” came the good-natured teasing from the King as he stepped forth to join us. “All we need to win is to let Moringotto hear you sing!”

The bard’s lips remained pursed as he swept down the hall to us. He made his way to the man I had struck and gently ran his fingers over the imprint of my open palm. When he turned to meet my shaken gaze, I knew I would have no quarter from him if we were to engage in a battle of music again. 

“I am fine,” said the other man. “It was my fault. I should have known how sensitised his nerves must have been by Macalaurë’s voice. He must be tuned to his music on a deep plane. It was remiss of me to startle him so after he had suffered.”

“You can never stay put, Russandol. Must you always rush in? He could have done you harm!” Maglor exclaimed, his eyes flashing in stubborn petulance as he resisted his brother’s attempts to mollify him.

Russandol. I took in the amused grey eyes that were twinkling as the man sought to appease his brother’s ruffled feathers. The emaciated form, the unruly carnelian mane and the eerie resemblance to a woman long dead. The lost prince, then. I swallowed as I realised he had not offered the left hand to mock my plight.

“We do apologise,” said Fingolfin quietly. “Had we known that Macalaurë might unsettle you so, we would have stopped him from joining in your song. As it was, we realised the consequences only after your collapse and he immediately stopped singing. None of us meant to discomfit you, truly. It was a pleasure to have you sing for us today. Your lay reminded me of times simpler and happier and I am grateful that you made me remember the beauty of innocence.”

He was sincere. I could it tell from the tone of his voice and the regret in his eyes. I nodded shakily. My music, my soul and my heart were all scarred by the devastation Maglor had caused. Those surrounding me seemed to sense my tension, for they silently drifted away to different parts of the hall. Entertainment was renewed and I watched the jugglers perform their tricks without seeing them at all. 

“I am sorry to have caused you harm, Daeron of Doriath,” Maglor murmured as he came to stand beside me. 

I nodded, not trusting myself enough to reply. 

“Are you always so sensitive to music?” he enquired after a few moments of silence. 

I felt I had regained enough composure to speak. So I asked him quietly, “Are you not? Music runs in your veins too.”

He said thoughtfully, “I know music. But I am not music, not the way you seem to be. There is craft in my blood. Music I learnt to please another.” 

I turned to face him. He met my gaze squarely. 

“Music has never ripped your heart and left you raw after you render it as you do?” I asked softly, wishing that he would spare me the truth which I saw in his eyes.

His gaze gentled and he said with quiet earnestness, “My heart would be in the keeping of music had I not offered it at another altar.”

“I cannot-” I began miserably.

“No, no, you can.” He placed a thin, bony hand on my shoulder. “You are music, Daeron. I envy you. I cannot be that. So I envy you more.”

He smiled then, with painful wistfulness marring his features and rendering him older than time. I stated quietly, “You are not mastered by music as I am. Nor do you wish to be.”

I thought of my music being my core, my soul, my heart and my very life. It was the reason why I was. It must be so with him too. It was inconceivable that it would be otherwise, given how he had flown on those golden wings of music. He would be a God mightier than the mightiest Vala if he gave into his music, for so powerful was his musical core. How could he wilfully deny what he could be?

“Macalaurë, do come, lest you want me to steal your truffles!” Maedhros called as everyone slowly filtered into the dining halls. 

“We were well-met, Daeron of Doriath. I hope I shall have the honour of speaking with you at greater length soon. But the feast beckons. Allow me to escort you to your seat,” Maglor said kindly, offering me another soft smile. It must be a rare occasion to be so gently treated by him, for everyone watching our exchange stared at us in incredulity. 

“I wish you treated me half as gently,” Maedhros remarked as he joined us. 

“Russandol. I despair of you. If you will not listen to a plea, then what recourse have I but sternness?” 

This banter seemed to be typical of them. Maglor’s eyes had lost their soft worry and were now sparkling with life and truth and happiness as he traded words with his brother. I had felt the same perfection and vitality evinced in his eyes only when I was cascading on music’s waves. 

“Daeron?” his voice broke into my thoughts again.

“I apologise to Lord Maedhros for my actions of earlier. I am deeply pained that I repaid your assistance with harm,” I said quickly, drawing my thoughts from those dangerous furrows they currently tread.

“It truly is of no consequence!” said Maedhros as he waved away my apology. “Now I must hasten. Nolofinwë awaits me.” With that, he was off.

“At least, this ought to make him more cautious in the future,” sniffed Maglor. “If he could feel music as you do, Daeron, mark my words, I would sing the softest lullaby and have him sleep until all dangers are passed.”

He was a child of hope and truth. What would be left of him when his altar was broken? For it would be broken. Maglor’s music was perfection, and that perfection was his offering to what he worshipped. The Gods had not forgiven Feanor for not sharing Eru’s flame with them. Which God across the sea would forgive Maglor for not hallowing the Valar with his golden voice? They would rip his altar from him one day and leave him with nothing. 

“Daeron?”

“Your brother seems to be the sort of man who would find trouble even in his sleep, Prince Maglor. Do you think keeping him in a deep slumber would ease your ordeals?”

He laughed. It was a pure and rich sound that I wanted to encase in a Silmaril and swallow whole. 

“I know, Daeron!” he said with a tender glance at his elder brother who was now holding court with élan at the King’s table. “He cares little for himself as he goes about meddling in others’ affairs. The idiot means well, but he is going to be the death of me.”

I laughed along with him, trying to squish the deep unease that his final words had caused. 

 

Before the Doriath contingent left the settlement, I chanced to make acquaintances of many of the key figures in the Noldorin ranks. There was the High-King himself, with his quietness a reassuring cloak over the despair he strove to conceal as he went about the business of seeing to his father’s tattered legacy. There was Fingon, the King’s firstborn, who was as merry as any Sinda in his wenching and carousing at nights while being one of the most formidable commanders at day. There was the talented young Celebrimbor, who was always closely guarded by one or other of his family. With him, I had only exchanged polite greetings, but even that short conversation had told me he was as true as the metal he worked with. Curufin was likely to be found in the company of Turgon, Fingolfin’s second-born. Finrod the fair was usually seen leading hunting trips. 

There was Maglor. He introduced me to his cousin, Galadriel, on the day after the feast. She measured me with her cool blue gaze and nodded briskly before pressing a kiss to Maglor’s lips and taking her leave. 

“She is my lover,” he explained without a trace of self-consciousness. 

It surprised me. How could he override the truth in his heart which had even surpassed the mastery music had of him?

“Shall I take you for a tour of the settlement then?” he asked. 

“I would be honoured,” I said truthfully. 

So he led me around the camp and introduced me to various men and women we met. Many of them expressed amused incredulity on seeing his unusual tolerance of a stranger’s company.

“But we are not strangers, are we?” he asked rhetorically. “Our music has touched.”

“Yes,” I said. Seeing that he would indulge any questions I had in a bid to make reparation for harming me with his music, I asked what had been on my mind for a while. “Does your cousin’s music touch you when she sings?” 

“Artanis?” He shook his head. “Not to the extent my music touched you. Artanis and I know each other well. So when our music meets, it is a truly splendorous sensation. It calms, it gives and it comforts. Only with him...”

“Yes?” I asked, knowing that I had no right to press, yet still wanting to know. 

“I suppose I owe you an answer after harming you so,” he murmured. It was easy to see that guilt was spurring him to kindness. I should have told him that I held no grudge, for what man begrudges feeling that golden tide of fire despite the pain and loss it leaves in its wake? 

“My brother,” he broke the silence abruptly. “He rarely sings. In fact, he never sings, I should say. But twice he has sung in my hearing distance. And on both occasions I underwent considerable unease, perhaps more intense than even your own discomfort when you heard me sing. I was alone on both occasions. It was fortunate, for any who had witnessed my actions born of discomfort might have termed me insane.”

“Does your music affect him so?” I enquired. 

“Not adversely,” he replied thoughtfully. “It affects him. He...he has difficulty sleeping. It is especially worse during moonlit nights. He says music swallows the moon and keeps him safe. I am not sure what he means by it, but my music affects him as profoundly as his affects mine.” 

“I leave for Doriath on the morrow,” I said quietly. 

“You did not ask me which of my brothers,” he murmured disbelievingly, his eyes wide in shock as they met my gaze before shying away. 

“I did not need to,” I replied, taking care to make my voice as kind as his had been earlier. “You should not envy me. Music is a fickle mistress. What you worship is not.”

He clasped my forearm for a moment before letting go. Then he cleared his throat and continued in his normal tone, “May you have a pleasant journey to your homeland then. If you need a shelter, or an ear, and if you can find it nowhere else, come to me.”

 

 

Lúthien’s music was as beautiful as the niphredil bloom, as soft as a butterfly’s wings and as warm as human breath. When my song met hers, spring woke in the darkest reaches of Doriath and Manwe’s winds danced on the vast flowerbeds.

Thingol called our song the greatest symphony which had been composed by Elves. We bowed to him in court and accepted his praises with grace. Did Lúthien believe him? I know I did not. Thingol had not been assailed by an aria golden and fiery which had power enough to make mortals of immortals. 

“You must not think that he is better than you. You are music, Daeron,” said Melian after the concert. 

“No,” I murmured, trying to quell my jealousy, bitterness and anger. Had I not given all of myself to music? Why then was my mistress so fickle that she would grace another more with her loyalty? “Music makes me, my queen. But he - he makes music.”

Melian’s eyes were kind and knowing as she remarked, “Then you must think on whether it is better to make or be made.”

“My queen?”

“I have found it is easier to be made,” she said quietly. “It leaves you free, unburdened and your only limits are those your maker imposed.”

To be made was easier, true. There were no expectations on you. Yet, I could not help but wonder how it would be to master music instead of being mastered.

 

And came Beren to Doriath, gliding through the ensorcelled barriers as if they did not exist. Borne on the eastern winds, as a plague of locusts, the young man left Doriath impoverished and dark for he stole the laughter and song of Menegeroth’s dearest daughter. No longer did her music complement mine and she lingered as a shadow of the heart Beren had thieved. What became of the mismatched lovers is not my tale to tell. 

Without Lúthien, Doriath was empty of symphony. My songs were lonely and my music restless. 

“Wanderlust shines in your eyes,” Melian told me.

I grunted as I tuned my harp, yet said no more. She handed a scroll to me and asked, “Will you be my emissary to Himring then?”

“Himring?” I stopped my activity and glared at her. “Those craven Noldor dared lay their tainted hands on our princess! What epistle would you have me carry to them if not tidings of wrath and war?”

She did not react to my tone or words. Instead, she asked calmly, “Will you be my emissary? Doriath is not your home, not anymore. Escape before you are imprisoned by inertia and loss, Daeron.”

With a soft lament and a whispered farewell, I left Doriath at the crack of dawn. Wanderlust roared in my blood and the winds called me east, east where stood the defiant hold of Himring, east where lay the fastness of Angband, east where rivers flowed red and black with the blood of Noldor and goblin. 

 

 

Himring

 

I was received with no little measure of suspicion by the Noldor at the keep of Himring. My errand was with the Lord of the fort, yet I requested audience with his brother. 

“Daeron!” Maglor greeted me with quiet effusiveness. Then his eyes widened and he asked, “Came you here bearing tidings of war?”

His brothers had caused the fair Lúthien grief. Politeness failed me and I did not reply. His gaze searched mine and then shied away to take in the spartan decor of the chamber we were in. 

“Meet Lord Maedhros if you are here to avenge your love’s ill-treatment at the hands of my younger brothers,” he said quietly. “I will have nothing to do with it.”

“I come from Melian,” I blurted, not wanting to see his face marred by resignation as it was then. “I know not what tidings her epistle bears.” 

He remained silent, and his gaze was fixed on the portrait of a young woman. Dark brown hair, eyes of the same colour. Shorter than most women of the Noldor. Perhaps the effect of a premature birth?

“My wife.” He waved his hand at the portrait. “Carnilótë. I have sent her to Círdan given the unstable situation in the east.”

I stared at him. Politeness vanished, disbelief yawed its way up my throat and I croaked, “You are married?”

A faint tinge of colour marked his features as he muttered, “As married as one can be.”

“But-”

“There you are!” exclaimed the Lord of Himring as he swept into the chamber. “Macalaurë, it is most unlike you to waylay guests.”

“I requested an audience with him,” I interjected. 

I had never been comfortable in the presence of Maglor’s brother. From the first meeting where his offer of help had irked me, I had not understood him. Those I did not understand, I did not trust. I could not. 

“I was telling him of my wife,” Maglor told his brother coldly, all warmth dissipating from his eyes. “He expressed surprise when he heard of my marriage.”

Were they at odds? This was not the tone of banter that I remembered from before. Was this why he had married?

“I see,” said Maedhros, his tone reflecting nothing of his reaction.

“Did you not see me as a marrying man, Daeron?” Maglor asked me. In his voice was the silent command to answer.

“It matters not,” I said diplomatically. “You are a married man.”

“That I am indeed,” Maglor’s words were smooth and cutting. My eyes widened as I saw the nearly imperceptible flinch of his brother. 

“Lord Nelyafinwë!” came a shout from without. “There is a messenger from the front.”

“I come, I come!” answered Maedhros, and left hastily without a word of leave-taking. I looked at Maglor then and stifled my cry of sympathy upon seeing the misery carved on his visage.

“I envy you,” he whispered as he moved to the portrait and gently brushed the woman’s features with his knuckles. “I envy you so, Daeron. How I wish music was my heart’s mistress!” 

 

Two days passed. I had presented Melian’s epistle to Maedhros. Days I spent in Maglor’s company. We spoke of music as he showed me the fort and its environs. As we walked back to the fort from the woods on the second evening of my stay in Himring, my eyes moved to my companion who had suddenly ceased speaking. He was staring at the distant darkness of Thangorodrim with such revulsion and sorrow in his eyes that I felt moved enough to dare place my palm on his trembling forearm. 

He flinched and took a step away before shaking himself. I averted my eyes in sympathy as he sought to even his breathing. 

“His mind is different now,” he murmured. “It is as if he left pieces of his shattered mind there. Holes that neither music nor time can fill.”

I did not reply for there was nothing which could have been said to assuage him then. 

“Are you in love with Lúthien?” he asked me.

“No,” I replied honestly. “Ours was a meeting of song. As you know, the touch of another’s music on your soul is often as intense as love. Her music calmed mine. After her departure, my music was restless.”

“I suppose I can understand that,” he granted thoughtfully. “Artanis and I share a similar rapport. “

“What of your wife?” I enquired. “Is there a rapport?”

“Carnilótë does not sing. Nor does she play an instrument. But she appreciates both.” He hesitated before adding, “She is very young, Daeron. Her mother died on the Ice giving birth to her. Her father was killed in Dagor Bragollach.”

An orphan, then. Had it been a marriage arranged by the court, or had Maglor chosen her? Did she kiss Maglor in public as Galadriel used to? Did she steal truffles from his plate as his brother once had threatened to? 

Across us, children cheered as warriors rode into the courtyard led by the Lord of Himring. We watched as he dismounted gracefully and swooped to pick up the youngest of the children. He cradled the girl in the crook of his arm and rubbed warm her unclad feet murmuring soft words of disapproval and concern. When the child’s father came forth, the girl was passed over, and then a moment later, the lord unpinned his cape and tucked it about the girl, taking care to ensure that her feet were nestled in the velvet warmth. Onlookers laughed as the girl squealed in delight and then leant over to kiss their lord’s cheek. 

“That is the third cape this week,” muttered Maglor. “He adores children so. When I was a young boy, he used to do the same for me whenever he saw me without shoes.”

“What will you do?” I asked softly.

“Worship,” he stated succinctly. “Is that not what I have always done?” 

 

On the third morning, Maedhros courteously invited me to his study. I looked around. The desk was littered with maps and bits of parchment. A peculiar scrawl had annotated them all. I frowned. 

“How would you describe Macalaurë’s song?” he asked without preamble.

“Gold. Fire. Power.” Words escaped me before I reined in myself and frowned at him. Why did he ask me? 

“Father was right then,” he murmured thoughtfully, his eyes distant as if staring into the future. “Molten gold indeed. Walls of stone, walls of iron, walls of sorcery and will. If rightly summoned...” He drew a parchment to him and began scribbling furiously. Numbers danced out from the quill. Fear gripped my heart. 

“You cannot use him!” I rose to my feet and placed my palms on the desk. “He has suffered enough without being your tool!”

He set down his quill and met my furious gaze with languid ease. Then he said, “You thought I deliberately insulted you by offering my left hand. The unclean hand.”

He was not going to guilt trip me by this non-sequitor. So I repeated emphatically, “You cannot use him so.” 

Music was sacred. I worshipped music. Maglor had mastered music. He worshipped a madman. Music was sacred, and I would not let it be sullied. 

“You misunderstood my motivations all those years ago in Nolofinwë’s court,” the madman said matter-of-factly. “You misunderstand my motivations now. I would not harm Macalaurë.”

“But you would harm music!” I exclaimed. “You would use Maglor and you would use his music.”

“You worry too much, Daeron of Doriath. Ah, but you are of Doriath no more! Do forgive me.” He smiled and rummaged about in a set of drawers built into the desk. Then he drew a scroll out from one of the drawers with a grand flourish and said, “I have here a letter of introduction to Lord Círdan. Take it.” 

“Why would Círdan need a letter from you to offer me bed and gruel?” I asked incredulously. “I could have very well obtained a letter from King Thingol if that had been my destination.”

“These are times of great peril.”

“Yes,” I said tersely. “What has that to do with your letter?”

“We ride to war soon. Correct me if I am mistaken, but it seems to me you wish no part of bloodshed.”

I nodded again, wondering where this would lead to.

“You cannot return to Doriath. You do not have anything to prove you are not an enemy’s agent should you approach Círdan or any other free lord. My signet can gain you safe-haven in all kingdoms but Nargothrond.”

I frowned. Why would he go to such lengths to ensure my safety? Even Maglor, whom I counted friend, had not given thought to my future in such meticulous detail. 

“In return,” he continued suavely, “I believe I shall require a favour.”

There it came. “A favour?” I asked. “You want me to swear that my suspicions shall remain secret? I shall not, I cannot, and I will not promise that. Not every man can be bought, Prince.”

“Ah, I do disagree. Every man has a price. However, I have no intention of buying you. I require nothing as unscrupulous as keeping my secrets, my dear minstrel.” 

Before I could fathom the deeper meaning in his tone, his eyes had trapped mine and a mist clouded my thoughts. It was cold, and it was sharp, and it was steel. Then I gasped and found that he was standing by the sole window in the chamber. His fingers gripped the frame as he stared unseeingly into the distance.

His mind is different now, Maglor had said.

“You are a monster!” I spat. “Your brother worships a monster and I pity him for it.”

“I pity him all the more,” he said coolly. “Take that letter with you when you leave, Daeron. It will keep you alive.”

“You pity him?” I bellowed. “How dare you? How dare you pity someone who is pure and made of hope? He is twice the man you are, Maedhros Feanorion.”

He did not turn to meet my eyes as he said sharply, “Then it is just as well that I shall have died for him twice before the end.” 

“Monster. Madman...” I shook my head in a vain bid to stay my wrath. “He worships you! How shattered will he be when he knows what you are?”

“Any epithet you grace me with shall have more than a speck of truth, I grant. What is necessary is not always right. Yet it must be done, if only to spare another that burden.” The fervour in his gaze unsettled me. I strove to calm myself before attempting to reason with him again.

“He will hate you,” I told him quietly. “He will hate you more than he hates Morgoth when he sees you for what you are. He will not be your tool. He will die before becoming anyone’s tool. He is a free soul. He has mastered music. No one, not even the Gods can master him now. Certainly not you, with your delusions of masterplans and revived Noldorin glory!”

“Charming as your tirade is, you vastly underestimate Macalaurë. In any case, my delusions are not your concern.”

I stormed out of the chamber. It was only after I had reached the dining hall that I remembered the letter he had crafted to buy my favour. Soft random tunes played on a harp calmed me and I followed the music. Maglor was seated by a low window and engrossed in staring forlornly at the wintery desolation outside as his fingers fluttered over harp strings of their own accord. To make music without meaning to was no little feat and I nearly envied him before a sharp jab of memory reminded me why I was better off. 

“You are a trusting man,” I said, and winced at the harshness in my voice. I had no right to impose my concern on him. After all, the madman was his brother.

“My father once said that art is truth,” Maglor said, without breaking the random play of harp strings. “I trust you because I know your music.”

It was the same for me. I trusted him because I knew him musically. Couching my words in blandest curiosity, I asked, “You trust your brother’s music?”

He stopped playing then. I began formulating an apology for prying into matters beyond my jurisdiction when he met my gaze steadily and said with his characteristic frankness, “He must have given you reason to make such an insinuation.”

So he was not as ignorant of his brother’s true nature as I had feared. You vastly underestimate Macalaurë, had said Maedhros when I confronted him. Perhaps I had.

“Do you remember me telling you that my brother has nightmares in conjunction with moonlight?”

Thrown by this digression, I cautiously weighed his words for hidden meanings before saying, “Yes. Your music alleviates those.”

“He says that my music swallows the moon.”

“I do not understand the reasoning. I have heard our storytellers speak of a monster eating the moon and leaving nights dark.”

“Well, this is Russandol,” Maglor smiled wryly, and I winced on seeing the affection and tenderness etched on his pale visage. “He hates the moon.”

“Then he pays a compliment when he says that your music swallows the moon,” I remarked. 

“Yes. He says the strangest things when in the throes of nightmares or delirium.” He hesitated before blurting, “Your music swallowed the moon, and you swallowed my heart, he says when he is delirious.”

No man could lie in dreams and delirium, so Melian always said. Perhaps the madman did consider Maglor as more than a mere tool. 

“Don’t be angry with him on my behalf. You have the right to be angry only for what he did to you.” Maglor cleared his throat and continued hastily, “What are your plans?”

“I intend to go to Nargothrond,” I said. “Caves suit me.”

“Primordial,” Maglor muttered, his disdain of caves clearly telling despite his conscious reining in of his natural sarcasm. 

I could not help laugh at his condescension. “For someone who is foolish enough to marry despite his orientation, I find your scorn rich!”

He raised a supercilious eyebrow before saying in a tone as dry as bone, “Not that it is any of your concern, Daeron, but I am and always have been attracted to women.”

I choked midway through my bout of laughter and then stared at him open-mouthed. He nodded briskly and returned to plucking the harp strings. I shook my head at the cruel play of the meddling Gods in his life before asking, “What of him?”

Maglor sighed before replying in a put-upon tone, “I have known him to indulge in activities only in the first few years following the feast and division of kingdoms. Those circumstances were murky at the best and I daresay they cannot be taken as any indication of his preferences. The common consensus in the family is that he cares not for such indulgences. That is as well, I suppose. My inclinations are set in stone. Even if they were not, I consider incest a crime and I hate myself for daring to contemplate such an intimacy.”

Incest. In my eagerness to know more of Maglor and his music, I had forgotten he worshipped his brother. A crime, unforgivable in the eyes of Gods and men. 

“It is a muddle,” I stated in my baldest tones, knowing that frankness was one quality that Maglor appreciated in interactions. “You are married and attracted only to women, he could be asexual, and now there will be a great war.”

“The wise did say that love, alcohol, idiocy and music surmount all,” Maglor said wryly. 

“Good luck, then. You will need it.”

I shook my head in fond amusement at the never-dying hope in his eyes. He deserved far better. But I did not dictate fate or hearts of men.

After taking leave of Maglor, I set out from Himring. My course would bear me to Nargothrond. My lips curled smugly at the thought of the letter I had left behind on the Prince’s desk. It would have gained me entry anywhere except Nargothrond. How dared he imply that I would be his dog if he fed me scraps?

Moonbeams bleached my fingers as they gripped my horse’s mane. I looked up at the full moon and my thoughts drifted to Maedhros again. Would Maglor be soothing his nightmares tonight? The manipulative man deserved nightmares every now and then. Every man has his price indeed. The gall! 

 

Sirion

 

I saw them once again, an Age later, on the periphery of the camps of the Western armies. I had been lurking there to watch the revels of victory after the War of Wrath. 

“I can’t, I can’t,” Maglor was whispering. “Don’t ask this of me.”

“You must.” 

It was said gently, with not a strain of bitterness tainting those words. Maglor shook his head wildly, and fell onto his knees, and clasped his hands in despairing supplication. 

“Please,” he said, naked pleading turning his voice raw. “Please. I am on my knees.”

“Hush!” A slender arm grasped Maglor’s shoulder and pulled him up. Maglor stumbled into his saviour’s hold. With his face pressed into his brother’s neck, with his hands fluttering over his brother’s breast, with his torso straining to meld into his brother’s body, they were not two. His wracking sobs and his brother’s silent grief were one. His mad terror and his brother’s soft words were one. They were one. 

They were one, and then his brother shattered them saying, “You will live, and I will always hold you in the darkest corner of my heart.”

 

Valinor

 

“Your father was proud and free. Noble and courageous. True and fierce. His heart was pure and devoted.” 

He had been all of those till the end because of the madman who had embraced slavery and deceit for his sake. 

“If he was all of those, why did he abandon me?” asked the embittered son.

I could have lied to him. But he had already been lied to by mother and lover and friend. The madman was dead. It was high time we let his elaborate web fade away.

So I gathered all my courage and said, “He loved a man who committed suicide before his eyes.”

The sea of expressions ravaging his face was painful to watch. But I had condemned myself by speaking the truth and my first punishment would be to see him suffer. Then he brought a shaking hand to cover his eyes and sighed. With the same earnest frankness that had marked his father, he said softly, “Thank you.”

“Let them stay dead,” I entreated. “They have taken even their shadows with them.”

“One question,” he breathed. “Why did that man commit suicide then, if he was so loved?”

I plucked at my robes. Then I said pensively, “Everything he did, it was to make sure that your father was spared doing it.”

A sharp intake of breath. Then silence. Then finally the quiet words, “They said white fire swallowed him whole.” 

I met those dark eyes. Hope sparkled in them. So like his father was he. So full of hope, despite everything. 

“I would not put anything past the madman,” I allowed. His eyes widened and hope erased the lines of worry on his features. 

“I wish I had met him,” he murmured, his eyes turning wistful pools of sooty black. “I mean, I have heard my father’s song. Through that song, it is as if I know the man he was. But him, I know nothing of him.”

“Every song your father composed was for him,” I replied. “Your father’s music was the only balm the madman accepted. Swallow the moon, swallow my heart, he used to say, whenever your father’s music rescued him from nightmares on full moon nights.”

The bard’s son was hanging on to my every word greedily. I wanted the lad to stop living amongst the dead. So I said, “All you need to know is that every act and word of his was a vindication of the love he bore your father.” 

Granted, that love had destroyed kings and kingdoms and Gods. But the young son of Maglor did not need to know any of that. He needed to live. 

“Thank you,” he said once more, and then walked away from me to join his friends.


End file.
